What Diet Fits You Best?

September 07, 2017

Time to get it in gear!

Summer is officially over and if you are anything like me, you may have gained a few pounds. THATS OK! Summer was made for relaxing, drinking beer, spending time with friends and family and binge watching every episode of Game of Thrones...

So since we decided to splurge a bit this summer, it's now time to get ourselves back in killer shape so that we can ultimately ruin it all over again come next summer!

In todays society, new "diets" are being released each month and they all claim to yield the best results. They all claim to be easy, fun and take little to no effort. I love the ones that say "New Diet! Burn Fat By Eating All Your Favorite Foods!" No chunky, that’s what got you here in the first place!

All of these diets do the same exact thing. These diets are all different ways to get you in a “caloric deficit”. If you read my blog yesterday you will know that a caloric deficit is when you burn more calories than you consume.

Im not a huge fan of "diets" in general but here are a few of the most popular ones and how they work:

The Eat Whatever You Like Diet

I joked about this above, but yes in theory you can lose weight eating junk food. Once again, if you consume fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. There are so many problems with this “diet” however. First of all, junk food is extremely high in calories and so the amount of actual junk food you would be able consume and still lose weight is so small that you would practically be starving yourself. And as you guessed it, this isn’t healthy! By eating only junk food, you are starving yourself of the proper nutrients that your body needs to function properly. Instead you would be loading up on tons of sugars, simple carbs and bad fats. So please stay away from this “diet”.

The Keto Diet

The “keto” (ketogenic) diet is a very high fat, low carb diet that has been catching a lot of attention and popularity lately. If done correctly it can yield great results! Here’s how it works… When we consume carbs, our bodies turn those carbs into glucose and then we use that glucose for energy. When we severely restrict our carbohydrate intake we put our bodies in a metabolic state called “ketosis”. When our bodies are in the metabolic state of ketosis it means that we are now using fat as our main source of energy rather than the glucose from carbohydrates. Our bodies like to use carbs/glucose as our main source of energy because it is much easier and more efficient to convert our carbs/glucose to energy than it is to use fat as energy. Once our bodies run out of glucose to burn it turns to fat instead. Sounds great right!? Well…it isn’t as simple or easy as that. The problem with the keto diet is that its very taxing on your body. Like I said, our body loves to use glucose as our main source of energy and once you run out of glucose and turn to fat, our bodies start working much harder to function. My personal experience with the keto diet was a disaster. Once I got into ketosis I was constantly starving as carbohydrates are very filling and I know longer got to consume enough of them to keep myself full! Another issue I ran into and many others do on the keto diet was that I always felt like I was in a haze and my brain wasn’t functioning as sharply as before. Our brains love to use carbs/glucose to function and when our carbs are that restricted, our brain starts to run off of things called “ketones” that are produced in the liver. Without getting too “sciency” on you guys, just know that our brain function is hindered when running off of ketones. The keto diet works because the lack of consuming carbs puts us in a caloric deficit, which allows us to burn more calories than we consume. I don’t recommend the keto diet at all because of how taxing my body felt when I was on it and because I love pizza and there are tons of carbs in pizza.

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting (I.F.) is by far one of the most highly used diet approaches in the health and fitness world right now. Intermittent Fasting is different than most diets because it doesn’t tell you what types of foods to eat or not eat. All I.F. does is tell you when and when not to eat! Interesting right? Here’s how it works… In intermittent fasting you cut the amount of hours in a day that you are able to eat. Intermittent fasting has a few different variations, but typically in I.F. you cut your “eating window” to 7-10 hours. This means you go to sleep at night, you wake up and then you don’t eat until roughly noon-2p.m. (depending). The reason this works for some people is because we can only eat so much food in certain amount of time without making ourselves sick! Think about it, most people wake up, eat breakfast, lunch, and some snack in between. With I.F. we cut out all of that extra eating! When we cut out all of this extra eating we consume less calories! Another reason why this approach works for some people is because we go half the day “fasted”. When your body is fasted that means that there is limited amount of “fuel” readily available to burn for energy. Just like we talked about earlier, when there is no fuel available to burn, we turn to our fat as energy. The reason I am not a huge fan of intermittent fasting is first of all because I love breakfast. I am one of those people that if they don’t eat in the morning when they wake up they feel nauseous. Another reason why I am not a huge fan of I.F. is because a lot of people think they can eat whatever the hell they want once they get to their “eating window”. These people splurge on junk food and eat so much that they end up over consuming and it defeats the entire purpose. I do however periodically do short (normally 1-2 week) I.F. cuts when I have a photo-shoot coming up or if I needed to be lean for any specific occasion. I think it is a great way to do a “mini-cut” but I don’t find possible to do over the long term.

Personalized Meal Plans

This is by far 100% the best diet advice I can give you. Go out and get yourself a personalized meal plan. I don’t care if you buy one from me, another fitness coach or even a clinical dietician. The reason I tell you this is because we are all different, our bodies are different, our goals are different, our schedules and our food preferences are different. Get a plan that is custom fit to YOU! You wont have to starve yourself, you will get to enjoy healthy foods that you like and more importantly you will get the results you are looking for. Having a custom plan made for you will take all the hassle out of having try and figure out what to eat, how much to eat, how often to eat etc. Like I said, I don’t care who you get your custom plan from, just know it is seriously worth thinking about and investing in yourself and your health is the best investment you can make.

If interested in one of my custom plans, email me at: cam@pbpfitness.com

Thank you all for your continued support and for taking the time to read this. If you haven’t done so, please go check out my business website and social media accounts: